Tag Archive: pizza

I love this: on my pizza delivery receipt, they included the order “Taken at” time and the “Delivered by” time.

Why is this so awesome?

I believe this is so great because of the following:

It takes minimal effort and money to add this data to the receipt

It allows the driver to properly prioritize his orders (if he gets confused as to which order should be delivered first)

I’m pleased if I receive my pizza before the “Delivered by” time

If my pizza is late, I will be upset anyway (even if they didn’t print the time on the receipt)

All customers have expectations, but they seldom quantify them; if we’re as good as we claim to be, this can be used to our advantage.

For example: I had no idea at which exact time I wanted my pizza. I just wanted it before I got too hungry and before it got “too late”. By seeing this receipt, it planted in my head that I wanted my pizza by 7:17pm, and that they exceeded my expectation by 19 minutes. I just went from content to happy – but there was no change in the act of delivery whatsoever!

Some high-schooler still took my pizza, put it in his car (with the funny sign on the roof), and drove it to my house – nothing physically changed in that process. The only difference, which led to me being more satisfied, was that they quantified my expectation, and then exceeded my, now quantified, expectation.

Where, in our daily lives, can we quantify other people’s ambiguous expectations of us so that we can exceed them? Project timelines with our bosses or our customers? Where else?

Yesterday, I was looking for the hours for my local Cottage Inn Pizza, so I went to the website (www.ordercottageinn.com), and clicked on the “Contact” link (one of only 5 links at the top of the page):

…which led me to this page:

Now, clicking the “Contact” tab on this page sends you to the correct contact page, but this is a good example in how simple proofreading/testing should not be undervalued!

Obviously, websites are of utmost importance (and have been for the past several years), but, while they may appear to be so commonplace and “dime-a-dozen” (there are pages and pages of individual Cottage Inn websites that come up on a simple Google search), we need to ensure that each one is an example of the quality of the company for which it represents.

Even in this instance, the “Cottage Inn” site which I originally visited was not main corporate site, but its bad link to the corporate site reflects negatively on the entire company (especially since the bad link was from one of the five main options at the top of the page)!

Proof read your websites and test the links, and then have a friend proofread and test out your links, and then have an enemy proofread and test your links! Try to do what your customer will do (which may not always be what you think that they’ll do), and make sure you can do it without any errors!

…and, lastly, when you do have to have your website throw an error, make it fun like this one!

It’s not just an ad/marketing strategy: it’s a promise. Once you say it, you have to do it, or your trustworthiness is shot.

A friend of mine recently shared his most recent Little Caesars experience: He wanted to pick up a Hot and Ready pizza, but, when he showed up, there was no pizza ready (…so it goes without saying that it also wasn’t hot).

I’m afraid that his story is not unique. I’ve actually had it happen many times.

Yet another lesson in keeping your promises (and what happens if you break them).

Don’t let your marketing guy make a promise that you can’t deliver on (pun fully intended), and don’t fail to live up to your promises!!!